A so-called mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Key Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia drew many of people each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing false prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds and hoaxes.
“As paradoxical as it may seem, she actually feels relief, believing this is an opportunity to reveal the truth of the events with transparency and to definitively put an end to all forms of speculation, misunderstanding and controversy,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of visions, crying statues, and so-called seers.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
